VG Cats
A video game-themed Funny Animal webcomic by Scott Ramsoomair. Rather than directly emulating the Two Gamers on a Couch format that was popularized by Penny Arcade, this comic instead does humorous parodies of video games and anime, with the comic's characters--Cloudcuckoolander Leo and Snark Knight Aeris--starring in said scenes.
Also includes subcomics Adventure Log and Super Effective (which starts here).
All of these comics have consistently good artwork (a few instances of re-used backgrounds not withstanding), but not so much with the updating schedule. Recently claimed to have finally settled on a regular schedule. There were a grand total of nine strips in 2010. Add that in with Adventure Log being cancelled, you have some serious Schedule Slip. Fortunately, at least Super Effective seems to be getting regular updates in 2011, and when that ended VG Cats itself started getting regular updates in 2012. Check Schedule Slip below.
Can be seen at: http://www.vgcats.com/
Please note that the site does not use a permanent URL system for its archives, and so the links used in examples may no longer lead to the intended page. Ideally, along with a link, also give the issue number and title.
VG Cats is the Trope Namer for:
- Face Full of Alien Wingwong: From #114, "That's Saying a Mouthful". Named along with examples of Smoking Hot Sex and Unsound Effect.
- Real Is Brown: From #223, "Gaussian Blur"
Tropes used in VG Cats include:
- 20% More Awesome: Used very nearly by name.
- May or may not have been a reference to My Little Pony Friendship is Magic.
- Aerith and Bob: Or rather, Aeris and Leo. Both are named after real cats who were naturally named after Final Fantasy characters.
- A.I. Is a Crapshoot / Artificial Stupidity: They don't call them "bots" for nothing.
- Affectionate Parody
- Alternate Universe: Years ago, Scott ran a brief (very brief - like, not even into double digits) comic called (VGKitties), exploring the notion that Leo and Aeris were ordinary housecats interacting in housecatty ways, rather than a pair of funny animals.
- Also used in one of the actual comics, which depicted an alternate universe where Sonic was more popular than Mario, Mortal Kombat (now "Minor Konflict") was family friendly, and the titular cats were dogs.
- Amusing Injuries: Oh so painfully Deconstructed here.
- Animated Adaptation: A flash toon attempt, but only one episode exists: check it.
- Art Evolution: Here is the earliest appearance of Aeris and Leo, back in 2001. And this is their early-2010 appearance. Yeah. Character style varies wildly from strip to strip.
- Ascended Fridge Horror: Their version of Tom and Jerry.
- Ascended Meme: Possibly in two of the pictures on this page.
- The word "Broseidon". Scott used it in the Bro Gamers strip (albeit spelled "Broseiden") to make fun of yet another "casual gamer" demographic: the frat boys who only play Halo and Madden. A few months later, Halo: Reach came out, and several gamers chuckled when they spawned a buddy next to them 15 times without dying.
- Atomic F-Bomb: Literally.
- And here, not quite so literally. Instead, it gives a Cluster F-Bomb immediately afterward.
- Attack Backfire: Used in this comic for using fire as a weapon in cold weather; pleasant for obvious reasons. (Unless you were to set the clothes on fire... in which case you'd be setting yourself up to get arrested anyway.)
- Author Avatar: Pantsman.
- Pantsman hasn't shown up in quite a while, and increasingly, Aeris is becoming Ramsoomair's megaphone.
- Author Tract: "Nerd Rage", an entire strip consisting of a tirade on how casual gaming is ruining the industry. Lampshaded here where other characters point out that flat out explaining your points makes a shitty allegory.
- Aw, Look -- They Really Do Love Each Other: Dawwwwwww.
- Bad Santa: Santa's Bad List is, but of course, written in the Death Note.
- Beyond the Impossible: Aeris aborts Leo from time. That's not what qualifies for this, however. What qualifies for this is that he got better.
- Bizarro Universe: In the aptly-titled "Bizarro!", where Sega won the Console Wars, and the protagonists are VG Dogs with flipped personalities. Damn you, Sliders!
- Black Comedy Rape: Many examples. Here's one.
- Blatant Lies: "Updated every Monday!"
- Brain Bleach: Aeris hates Algorythms.
- Canada, Eh?: The special Canada Day strip.
- Cameo: Yahtzee. [1]
- Cats Are Snarkers: Aeris the cat is easily the most sarcastic character in the webcomic.
- Cat Smile: From Aeris.
- Cluster F-Bomb:
- By Popular Request, in which Pantsman gives his opinion on Inuyasha.
- Kinder Surprise, to Aeris, quite expressively so.
- Continuity Nod: In the ever-popular "The Perfect Gift", Aeris owns figurines of the monstrosities Leo created in "Wright to Life". They sit just below her Haruhi Suzumiya girls Playboy Bunny poster and next to a Lucario figurine.
- Crate Expectations: Played with here.
- This is taken straight from the source game, where this happens with 90% of the crates you open.
- Cute and Psycho: Aeris, and especially Green from Super Effective.
- Cute Little Fang: Aeris, most often.
- Damn You, Muscle Memory!: The "First Comic" and "Last Comic" buttons are in the middle, between the "Previous Comic" and "Next Comic" buttons. This may be the only webcomic on the internet to do this.
- Darker and Edgier:
- Leo explains the origins of the Tooth Fairy and Chocolate Milk.
- Their explanation of Frosty the Snowman here.
- Declarative Finger: Parodied here.
- Dead Baby Comedy:
- Both metaphorically and literally in "The Comedian". Also, the babysitting gun turret from Portal.
- They then took it Up to Eleven with Dead Fetus Comedy!
- This fits the trope, as well.
- His take on how a certain episode of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic should have ended. Some bronies were less than amused, and the comic has since been taken down.
- Just for clarification: which episode? Well...
- Dead for Real: Doctor Hobo, mayherestinpeace.
- Deep-Immersion Gaming
- Defictionalization: The "Wright for Life" comic led to the actual Spore team creating their own, replacing the drawn aliens with ingame ones, and later on physical models were made. Of course, Spore players can attempt something like this as well.
- Different World, Different Movies: This comic shows a world were Aerith and Leo are dogs who play games such as Minor Konflict and the Shadow the Hedgehog-esque Yoshi the Dinosaur.
- Digital Piracy Is Evil: Parodied here, at least before it disappears into complete incoherence.
- Distant Reaction Shot
- Don't Explain the Joke: Aeris's response to Leo when he makes an incredibly misogynistic joke about why girls like stories about vampires and feels the need to spell out what he's talking about. Leo does this a lot. "Recurring, if you will."
- Double Entendre: "That is the BIGGEST barrel I've ever seen, is it pump action?"
- Easter Egg: That password in "Nerd Rage" really works for Mega Man 2, all bosses, full e-tanks.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Well, Prof. Oak in Super Effective isn't evil as such, but he does act just a little unhinged most of the time. Joking about, or worse, enjoying the idea of, the rape of his granddaughter by Naughty Tentacles, however, is going just a bit far even for him.
- Face Full of Alien Wingwong: Trope Namer and provider of page image.
- Fantastic Racism: Turtle Power!
- Fingertip Drug Analysis: Parodied in a strip about Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney.
- For Science!: Leo used it as an excuse to do what he did with Winnie the Pooh. And his past self.
- Foreshadowing: page 25 of Super Effective, where this kid says he's never seen Brock's eyes open. Exactly ten pages later...
- Funny Animal
- Gag Boobs: This strip.
- Geo Effects: Parodied in "High Ground".
- Good Angel, Bad Angel: Or rather, Bad Angel and Clown.
- Good Eyes, Evil Eyes: Leo's eyes are wide and somewhat goofy. Aeris, while not evil per se, is deeply cynical and dangerously unstable, and has narrower, unconnected eyes.
- Grammar Nazi: Yes.
- Hello, Insert Name Here: Parodied in Super Effective, where the main character names his rival "DOUCHE".
- Heroic Mime: Red keeps this status as in the original game.
- Heroic Comedic Sociopath: Aeris often resorts to rather extreme methods when dealing with idiots.
- High-Class Glass
- High-Pressure Blood: This comic shows a Worms game going on... normal, right? Well, when part of the ground was destroyed by a rocket, we cut to... Leo in pain and blood stains behind him. Take a wild guess what happened. Also counts as Bowel-Breaking Bricks when you think about it.
- Homage: Leo's reaction to Dr. Hobo's death is an homage to Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann.
- Hulk Speak: Anything said by Krug.
- Human-Focused Adaptation: Discussed in this comic.
Starring a cast of two-dimensional characters no one cares about! With special guest stars the Transformers.
Yes, I am aware of the hypocrisy!
- I Cannot Self-Terminate: Oh god, this strip. And worse, Pooh begs piglet to kill him!
- Identical Panel Gag: Very frequent, usually doubled as Beat Panels. Notably used just before Aeris's Atomic F-Bomb.
- Incredibly Lame Pun: Lampshaded.
- Jackass Genie: What happens when you ask the Monkey's Paw for Duke Nukem Forever. Three wishes left...
- Two if you include Leo's wish for a large wiener.
- Lampshade Hanging: Why are you a cat?
- Let's Mock the Monsters: You know, maybe we shouldn't be jamming the helpless critters into airtight balls and hemorrhoids.
- Light Flicker Teleportation: Here.
- Man-Eating Plant: Fullpetal Botanist.
- N-Word Privileges: Taking "pretending to be racist" just a little bit too far.
- No Dead Body Poops: Averted.
- Not Rare Over There: Used as part of a rant by Ash, here.
- Not What It Looks Like: Good game, Leo.
- Of Corset Hurts: Parodied.
Ms.Dipshits: You don't need oxygen when you look this good...
- Orphaned Series: Not the main strip, but Adventure Log stopped at eleven strips and was deadlinked over a year later. According to Ramsoomair, the Adventure Log update schedule was directly tied to each release of the official Final Fantasy XI newsletter (which included the comic as an insert). The game always had rather shaky support from Square, and when they stopped making new newsletters, Scott stopped making new comics.
- Pink Girl, Blue Boy: Aeris is literally pink. Leo is gray, but his preferred color of clothing is blue. Possibly a Genius Bonus, as there are certain breeds of cats - thanks to specific recessive genes - that have grey fur, and the technical term for this is a 'Blue' cat.
- Poe's Law: It's really, really hard to tell if "Nerd Rage" is an Author Filibuster or a Stealth Parody, as people have voiced every one of those complaints without irony.
- Pooled Funds: Meanwhile, at Valve...
- Precision F-Strike: Prof. Oak in this strip of Super Effective.
- Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: The former trope namer is parodied here.
- Quintessential British Gentleman: Leo's dad, Leo Leonardo The Second.
- Random Encounters: Parodied.
- Rapid-Fire Comedy: A rare webcomic example.
- Refuge in Vulgarity: There's quite a few strips that fall into this.
- Schedule Slip: While the comic advertises that it's updated every Monday, this seems to be the case much more rarely nowadays. Lampshaded in the "Left Behind" comic, as well as the randomly-changing page titles.
- The main comic seems to update, at its most frequent pace, about once a month, mostly because of Scott's busy con schedule, which he only has because of VG Cats, the comic he barely updates anymore. Ow...
- Getting better... At 18 comics per 52 weeks, that's a nice batting average of 34% of Mondays.
- Total updates in 2010: 18 - 9 VG Cats, 9 Super Effective.
- Total updates in 2011: 18 - 8 VG Cats, 10 Super Effective.
- Total updates as of May 1, 2012: 08 - 8 VG Cats, 00 Super Effective.
- 3 updates in a row in March and 2 in April, and we finally have strip #300, suggests VG Cats is becoming much more regular.
- The main comic seems to update, at its most frequent pace, about once a month, mostly because of Scott's busy con schedule, which he only has because of VG Cats, the comic he barely updates anymore. Ow...
- Self-Deprecation: In addition to the randomized "Updated whenever" comments in the title bar, this, and the first strip of 2012.
- Serious Business: "Waiting", for one. "Nerd Rage", for another. And don't even ask about this guy...
- Plus Aeris' love for Jean Luc Picard and Star Trek TNG. And, conversely her hate for Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
- Ship Tease: This comic. It also counts as a Crowning Moment of Heartwarming.
- Also this comic.
- Shock Site: A pixellated Goatse appears on a TV in this comic.
- Shout-Out:
- In Super Effective. "Yours is a drill that will pierce the heavens!"
- Ditto: This.
- Oh, and the main characters are named Aeris and Leo... both of which are Final Fantasy characters who are killed by the main villain of their respective games.
- In this strip: Fullfillith Thine Fight.
- Aeris's shelf in this strip is home to Gurren Lagann, Lucario, and Spore creature figurines. On the wall is a Suzumiya Haruhi poster.
- One of the update lines says the world ends with Update, if you want to enjoy life, expand your update.
- Friendship Is Magic makes appearances in this strip, this one, this one, and most obviously this one.
- To 300, here.
- To Zero Punctuation in this strip.
- Shower of Angst: Samus after realizing she slept with Master Chief.
- Skyward Scream: MONKEY PAAAAAW!
- Stay in the Kitchen: Get back to cooking, Mama
- Take That: To Inuyasha here.
- Take That, Critics!: In response to complaints over an abortion joke, we got this.
- Tertiary Sexual Characteristics:
- Aeris's color and "hair" style are the only real indicators that she's female. There was one comic, years ago, where both she and Leo were more humanly proportioned. This is the only recorded incidence of Aeris having breasts of any sort.
- These days, it shows better that she's just 'small'. There's even a one-strip fancomic on-site that shows her as a bit self-conscious about it when she hears that a fictional Japanese adaptation gives her character a bigger bust. So much so that she tells Leo to bring his Pyro suit.
- Title Drop: CHARMANDER used METAL CLAW! It's SUPER EFFECTIVE!
- They Changed It, Now It Sucks: An in-universe subversion here. Leo starts to do this, but then decides it's for the best.
- Too Dumb to Live: Leo is this very, very often. Or maybe Leo is too stupid to die.
- Trolling: Spy Leo does this to Scout Aeris.
- Tsundere: Aeris, if this strip can be considered indicative of a deredere side.
- Unexplained Recovery: Leo, after Aeris "Aborted [him]... from time". Blatantly lampshaded, to boot.
- Unsound Effect: FACE!
- Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Nobody in-universe seems to notice Leo and Aeris are walking, talking cats until the three-hundredth strip.
- Vague Age:
- Aeris's ID in the (very brief) Animated Adaptation simply reads "Legal".
- She looks like she's going to college, given this strip.
- The first published version of this strip indicated that Leo was 21 years old; Ramsoomair later edited the figure to the less precise "many years earlier", as Leo himself has yet to reach that age to begin with.
- Video Game Cruelty Potential: The subject of many comics, as seen in this strip about The Sims.
- Vitriolic Best Buds: Aeris and Leo, for all her antagonism and his dim-bulb moments, do care for each other. Doubtful? Look and see.
- Wanted: Leo Leonardo, dead or alive. Reward: 90,000,000 dollars.
- What Could Possibly Go Wrong?: This strip. Entrusting unfathomable power to a bunch of kids. What could possibly go wrong?
- What Did I Do Last Night??: Samus Aran gets this after a Christmas party. The answer is "Master Chief."
- What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?: This strip spoofing Captain Planet inspired the meme.
- Yaoi Fangirl:
- Aeris. Just... Aeris.
- The Star FOX example actually reflects a considerable real-life Fan Yay. In Japan, Fox and Falco are actually a more popular Fan-Preferred Couple than Fox and Krystal.
- Your Mom: One of Leo's favourite forms of joke. He suffered for it in the end.
- Or rather, SHE suffered for it in the end.
- You Have Researched Breathing: The trope article's picture.
- You Monster!:
Leo: Do you think Sims feel pain?
Aeris: You're a MONSTER, and you're going straight to hell.
- And another
Aeris: Did you just feed him his parents? ... Yeah, I'm taking this for a while.
- ↑ strip 292
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